I decide to ignore stat points for now as I want to test their effects a bit more so I pull the dagger out of the goblin´s eyes.

Damon and Sophie seem to be shaken, but their wounds aren't that serious. Damon is naturally athletic and strong, with long limbs, meaning his reach is pretty big. Sophie seems to be well-versed in martial arts, but even so, this creature, around a meter and a half tall, managed to hurt them in a 2v1 fight.

“Motherfucker…” Damon kicks the corpse of the goblin.

For me, it just seems like a way of hiding his fear. I can even see his shaking hands and hear a slight tremble in his voice.

“Can you carry its corpse?” When I ask, he looks at me like I'm crazy.

“There might be more of them, and we don't want them to find their friend´s corpses,” I add before he says anything.

He just nods solemnly after a short pause.

“Sophie.” When I call her name, she looks up.

Oh. I like the look in her eyes.

“I will carry the other one, and you can help Hadwin,” she says.

She catches on pretty fast.

“Carry only the corpses; I or Hadwin will take care of the rest.” I pause. “Don't bring them too close to other passengers for now,” I add.

She nods.

I go deeper into the forest. The dagger is once again in my hand. It's made out of some kind of obsidian-like stone, but it's surprisingly sharp and hard.

Hadwin is looking at the corpse of the goblin, and I step next to him.

“Damon and Sophie will bring the other two away. I will take this one. Can you take care of their weapons?” I ask.

“I will. I can also try to cover up some of our and their tracks.” Hadwin answers while standing up.

"Sounds good." To be honest, I partially expected something like that from Hadwin, but I wasn't so sure. I scan the man in front of me once again.

Let's be a bit more careful with him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The way he starts looking around and taking care of tracks that he can cover looks experienced to me, but I don't know much about bushcraft, so he could very well be making it worse.

I keep a watch while he does so, and when he is done with our closest surroundings, I kneel to lift up the goblin and put him over my shoulders.

Unintentionally, I let out a surprised noise as the goblin is much heavier than I expected him to be. Probably more than the average adult male.

Goddamn green asshole.

For someone at this height, it's a lot and he isn't even that bulky. But I guess we can't use human standards here.

Hadwin picks up the goblin's weapon and our stuff. My loyal pipe is there as well.

When we reach the spot where the fight started, Hadwin starts covering tracks or digging out ants or whatever he does. He is an expert here, not me.

Both goblins are gone, and in the end, Hadwin also grabs their weapons from the ground and watches our backs as I lead the way. The pistol is in his hand. The weapons and our stuff are under his other hand or inside his backpack.

We move quickly and quietly without a word, and once in a while, Hadwin does something that I guess is covering the tracks of our two companions and ours.

After around 15 minutes of walking, we reach the clearing.

I notice that I am not as tired as I should be after carrying such weight. Sure, I lifted heavier weights before, but carrying it through the forest? It's either adrenaline or, and I guess the more probable option, the effect of putting three stat points into the constitution.

We find Damon and Sophie lying on the ground, breathing heavily and covered in sweat, while their baggage is a few meters away from them with other passengers surrounding the dead goblins.

Once again, I realize how much better state I'm in as I throw the green creature on the ground.

Damon has an angry look on his face as he turns to me. I don´t say anything, just look back at him.

"Fuck off," he breathes out and turns towards Hadwin, "What the hell was that? What are these green little fuckers?"

"Goblins." Hadwin's tone is flat.

"No shit. I asked..."

Before he can continue, the older man interrupts him. "I don't know, Damon. As you know, I've been here as long as you have." There is a slight frown on his face. "What I know is that we should be thankful that we are still alive. These... creatures are far stronger than they should be."

"And much heavier," Sophie says quietly, and there is a questioning look on Hadwin's face. "The one I carried must have weighed more than me, and it's the smallest and slimmest one."

"Fucking hell, mine is for sure over twice that," Damon adds.

From the corner of my vision, I see Sophie rolling her eyes.

Hadwin slowly walks towards my goblin and tries to lift him. Surprise appears on his face, but with a groan, he lifts him up.

"For sure he weighs more than me," he puts him back on the ground.

Everyone falls silent.

"We should dissect them," I say after a while.

Their gaze instantly turns back to me.

Uhm? Why are you looking at me like that?